Tarantino dialect

Tarantino (; Tarantino: dialètte tarandíne [taranˈdiːnə] or u tarandíne; Italian: dialetto tarantino, pronounced [taranˈtiːno]), also known as the Cataldian vernacular (so called, from the twentieth century onward, in honor of the city's patron saint), is a transitional language or dialect, most of whose speakers live in the southeastern Italian region of Apulia, especially in the Apulian city of Taranto (with specific varieties in some neighboring municipalities). The dialect is also spoken by a few Italian immigrants in the United States, especially in California. In Taranto, differences are found between the Old Town variant of Tarantino and that of the Borgo Nuovo. Today it is also spoken in the nearby municipalities of Statte and Leporano by the majority of the population, while in Monteiasi it displays more distinctly Salentine features. From a linguistic point of view, Tarantino occupies a transitional position between the Salentino dialects (belonging to the group of Extreme Southern Italian dialects) and the Apulo-Barese dialects (belonging to the Intermediate Southern Italian group). The distinctiveness of Tarantino has often been attributed to its Greek substratum, dating back to antiquity and maintained until the sixteenth century, when Greek was still spoken alongside Romance vernaculars in the area. This feature links Tarantino to the Extreme Southern Italian dialects (Salentino, Southern Calabrian, and Sicilian), with which it shares numerous lexical and structural elements of Greek origin. Recent studies have highlighted that these characteristics are not merely borrowings, but genuine structural elements deriving from the ancient Magna Graecia koine.